Humans of New York Helps Humans in Pakistan

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Aug 12, 2015 at 1:30pm PDT

Brandon Stanton's popular Humans of New York website is a photographic tribute to the faces and thoughts of the citizens of Manhattan. But this August, in a sharp departure from his usual stomping ground, the street photographer visited Pakistan.

And, by putting the South Asian nation into the frame, Mr. Stanton said on his website that he's helped raise more than $2 million for a Pakistani charity.

The former bond trader has attracted an international following for his humansofnewyork.com website, which has more 14 million likes on Facebook, by posting photos of people he meets, along with a quote or short blurb about them.

Following his adventures in Pakistan, Mr. Stanton posted pictures of people with datelines from Karachi to Lahore and the Hunza Valley to Passu.

One photo with a Lahore dateline shows a man and woman standing awkwardly next to each other with the quote: "Our friends are trying to set us up." In another, with a Passu dateline, a man smiles as he sits next to a wall. The quote says, "I am the happiest man in Pakistan."

Mr. Stanton also met, photographed and wrote about bonded laborers working in the country's brick kilns, a woman who needed treatment for Hepatitis C and a man who lost a tractor in an accident and required medical care.

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Aug 14, 2015 at 9:56am PDT

The street photographer's fans responded to these people’s stories by heaping money onto a fundraising page—set up on a website that allows people to make online payments to support a cause—for the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, posting offers of help for the sick woman and donating more than $6,000 on a fundraising page for the man with the broken tractor.

Mr. Stanton's post about Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who is general secretary of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, asked readers to donate to her charity--and the fundraising page that states its organizer is 'Humans of New York'--shows they pledged more than $2 million after he did so.

The Bonded Labour Liberation Front's website says its mission is the "total eradication of the bonded labor, injustice, illiteracy inequality and poverty in south Asia."

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Aug 17, 2015 at 3:47pm PDT

A person is described as a bonded laborer when their work is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is trapped into working for very little or no pay, according to human rights organization antislavery.org.

A post on the Humans of New York Facebook page said Ms. Ghulam Fatima was set to meet with the charity's board to plan an expansion of the efforts following the influx of money. Mehar Safdar Ali, an executive member of the organization, said its management committee is working on future plans and will announce them when ready.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we want to build a real freedom center in Lahore, here we can work on not just releasing families but rehabilitation. We want workers to be treated with the rights they deserve as citizens," Ms. Ghulam Fatima said in a statement posted on the Facebook page to thank people for their donations.

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Aug 3, 2015 at 8:45am PDT

"Before this fundraiser, Fatima had exhausted her financial resources in the struggle against bonded labor to the point where she feared that she'd be unable to pay her own medical bills. Thanks to everyone who donated over the past 72 hours, she now has nearly $2 million to continue her organization's fight against bonded labor," a post on the Humans of New York Facebook page said.

Mr. Stanton didn't respond to a request for comment.

Separately, Mr. Stanton's fans have donated money to help the man who was hurt in the tractor accident. Mr. Stanton quoted the man, whom he didn't name but was later identified by the Islamabad-based nonprofit Comprehensive Disaster Response Services as Abdul Shakoor, as saying that despite injuries, he was continuing to work. Abdullah Sabir, a 22 year old from Lahore, Pakistan, who works in Internet marketing, said he set up a fundraising page for Mr. Shakoor after reading about him online.

More than $6,000 was donated on that page and Mr. Sabir says the money will go to the CDRS. "I'm happy people can make a donation to help my country," Mr. Sabir said. Zubair Makhdoom, operations director at CDRS, said he didn't know about Mr. Sabir's fundraising, so couldn't comment on it. The CDRS said it will help Mr. Shakoor get medical care and is helping him pay back the money he owes for the tractor that was destroyed in the accident.

A photo posted by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Aug 18, 2015 at 6:08pm PDT

Meanwhile the woman who was quoted as saying she had Hepatitis C and had left an abusive relationship received offers of help. The Humans of New York website said an email address had been set up to receive thepledges for the woman, who wasn't named. "Based on the outpouring of offers and support from yesterday, hopefully we can help her heal and get back on her feet," the post said.

To conclude his posts from his trip to Pakistan, Mr. Stanton published a photo of a group of boys and urged people to look beyond media reports about the country that are dominated by acts of terror: "It's not that terrorism, patriarchy, and violence aren't real problems in Pakistan. They exist and the country is battling these issues every single day. Pakistanis are very much aware of the extremism in their midst. The problem is that so many people seem to only be aware of that extremism."

This is not the first time Mr. Stanton has taken South Asia by storm. Last year, in India, he received a rock-star welcome after posting asking followers to meet him in New Delhi.